Cognitive Skills Test
The entrance exam for BSc Computer Science & Engineering at TU Delft. It is 100% of the admissions ranking — no high school grades, essays, or other criteria count. CSE is numerus fixus (550 spots/year); your CST score, converted to a z-score against your cohort, determines whether you get one.
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Format
Three sections, taken back-to-back in one sitting, fixed order, no breaks, one attempt:
| Section | Weight | Time | Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mathematics | 40% | 60 min | Pre-university (VWO Wiskunde B / IB HL) calculus, algebra, trig, geometry, vectors |
| Systematic Reasoning & Logical Thinking | 35% | 60 min | Propositional/predicate logic, Boolean algebra, proofs — from one specific textbook chapter |
| Problem Solving | 25% | 60 min | Algorithmic/combinatorial puzzles — no syllabus, can't be studied for directly |
No calculators, no notes beyond the official formula sheet, no re-sits. Questions get harder as each section progresses; most candidates don't finish. Guessing costs nothing (no negative marking on the CST itself, though some practice materials use it) — answer everything you can.
How to prepare
- Math: Work the formula sheet and syllabus in this folder (
CST Formula Sheet.pdf) until the formulas are second nature — you can't look anything up during the exam except this sheet. TU Delft's free "Pre-University Calculus" MOOC (audit track) covers the same ground. Practice under time pressure: speed, not just correctness, is what's tested. - Logic: Read Chapter 2 ("Logic") of Delftse Foundations of Computation — this is the actual syllabus, not just a suggestion.
Delftse Foundations of Computation - Chapter 2.pdfis in this folder. Do every non-starred exercise; no official solutions exist, which is itself part of the filter. Past candidates report a real gap between the optional prep lecture and actual exam difficulty — the textbook is what closes it. - Problem Solving: There is no syllabus and nothing to memorize. It tests raw pattern-recognition and algorithmic thinking on novel puzzles (path-counting, shortest routes, rule inference, constraint puzzles). Practicing general computational-puzzle sets (e.g. Bebras Challenge problems) builds comfort with the format, not answers to specific questions.
After the exam — when you hear back
While you wait
Housing, community chats, and the rest of getting yourself here are in the handbook: Arriving in Delft. Start on housing before you have your result, not after — it is the single thing most likely to derail your start.
Worth knowing
- Scoring is relative (z-score against your cohort, per language track), not absolute — there's no fixed pass mark, so a hard year hurts everyone equally.
- Math is worth more than Logic and Problem Solving combined-ish (40% vs 35%/25%) — if you can only over-prepare one section, make it Math.
- The Logic section is the one candidates consistently underestimate; treat "optional" prep lecture attendance as insufficient on its own.
- You cannot bring outside knowledge to Problem Solving — spend prep time elsewhere and treat this section as pure exam-day execution.